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Ma'am,

I do believe Don did not deserve that reply for only trying to help. He has helped me several times and I have found his advice to be good.

As for your barn, I believe he is spot on with his advice to you. In my younger days, I used to help my father build pole barns and occasionally we worked on a much older barn. I loved that kind of work but it was usually done for the love because the owners wanted the dear old barn saved but didn't want to spend money on them. Once you put a nice roof on, and redo the foundation, and put some paint on it, they will last a long time just like when they were first built.

While a roof is no place for a novice, a foundation is very doable with a few tools, a plan, and perhaps a guiding hand. The first step is to evaluate what you have. Is any of the foundation salvagable? If no, you'll need to gather enough cribbing to support the whole barn. Railroad ties work well, or locally we have available used square guard rail posts and blocks which work well and you dont have to deal with the nasty black creosote. You can get by with just one jack but it will take a long time to get it jacked up plumb and square where you can start tearing out the old foundation and start the new. You can't take a barn with a 18" sag in the center and just start jacking that up to where it is straight. You have to work it a couple inches at a time to get it straight otherwise the barn will likely shift somewhere(a bad thing). Make sure your blocking and cribbing is secure. I prefer enough jacks you don't have to reset a hundred times but if you have time you can do it with one, jack up, put more blocks under, and let it back down and continue to go around until your even.



Once it is jacked up, plumb, level, and properly supported, you can start tearing the old foundation out. You say it is stone. Is it laid up with no cement of any kind? Is it just shifting and that is why it needs work or are the stones breaking? If the stones aren't breaking you can take them all out, pour a footer and reset them(I would lay them up with cement but that is your choice). If they are breaking then you need to decide if you want to spend the money to buy new stones, to pour cement, lay up block, etc. All of these options are perfectly doable for the average homeowner but you will know you put in an honest days work. It is nice if you can find someone who knows what they are doing to help you along. sometimes it is easier to do one section at a time. The best part about that is once the barn is supported so it won't fall down, you can work on the foundation one section at a time as the finances allow it. Periodically review your blocking/cribbing to make sure it isn't shifting or about to fall apart, though.



Once you get it all repaired, slowly let it down the way you jacked it up, a little at a time. If the roof is swaybacked, you can run a cable from eave to eave and put a come-along on it to bring it in a little at a time until the roofline is straight. With a little paint it will look as good as new and last a LONG time. The best part of it is being able to say I took this crappy looking barn that was about to fall down and I repaired it and made it better. Look at it now!

The only word of warning I have is if it is a bank barn instead of a yankee barn where the wall has soil on one side I would reinforce it/build it in a way that the frost doesn't push the wall in. Keeping moisture away from the wall helps a lot.



Good luck, and my advice is worth exactly what you paid for it!
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